The Greatest Show On Earth

My day went on as planned. Boy Scout pancake breakfast. Arranging temporary housing in my mixing bowl for the fish my daughter won at the firehouse carnival. My brother fixing my lawnmower. All part of a countdown to our departure time for the weekend I’d planned.

Along the way, I got a call from J. It was finally here – and finally hitting home how terribly unnatural all of this felt. I had to agree. He was attending a huge family event without a vital part. Perhaps his heart.

I lamented again that this was not what I would have chosen, but could not have made a different decision. He agreed that he would not have done differently had the shoe been on the other foot. (It never would be…my sister would never do something this socially retarded.) J. couldn’t hang this on his sister entirely though. She was not in control. Em was.

But I can fault her for not reeling in the runaway bride. “J. she let her daughter send them completely into debt. Debt they don’t have enough life left to recover from! She spent what equates to Timmy’s entire college education."

And then the most incredulous thing of all came out of J.’s mouth. “Oh, they don’t pay for college. The kids have to pay for college themselves.”

Say WHAT?

“You mean to tell me that they will not pay for the most important investment of a parent’s life, but have willingly gone into Ivy League debt for a 5 hour party? Now that you’ve said this out loud, does it make any sense to you at all? 'I won't contribute one cent to the development of your mind, but I will shell out a king's ransome for canapes and calla lillies.' How do they actually form those words without hanging their heads in shame? And think about it. Timmy gets screwed twice.”

It didn’t matter. The deed was done. I hope the other two daughters didn’t have any high falutin' wedding plans swirling around in their little up-do heads.

We changed the subject. I asked if he had Brill Creamed his hair and donned the peach man-blouse. No, but he’d ditched his original navy suit idea in favor of a stylish, fashion forward look with a knocked out tie and high end shoes. The missing critical accessory was me on his arm.

I was hating this.

We were still on the phone when he pulled into the church parking lot. The scene of so many events. Christenings. First Holy Communions. Confirmations. My wedding. My father’s funeral. And now this.

A moment later he recognized another car in the lot and let fly with a couple of hand picked expletives. Sandy’s car. Oh goody. Something else to show restraint about. It just kept getting better.

And then a second after that, the groom and his groomsmen arrived – in a trolley bus that looked suspiciously like the Drunk Bus favored by high-risk DUI candidates at a nearby beach town. And then as if on cue, the girls circled the lot in a similar trolley. No stretch limousine for Em. No, a limo's smoked glass was intended to conceal the identities of the passengers, protect them from the leering eyes of other drivers. No, Em was like a Hollywood newcomer, craving the attention, putting on a show, pretending she was not.

I am not sure why the trolleys came as a surprise to me and J. Every party Sheila had ever thrown featured the Trolley caterer – complete with choking fumes, overcooked green beans, sticky baked ziti with bland sauce, and of course the obligatory red bliss potatoes. Why break with tradition now? We’ll have to explore Sheila’s fascination with choo-choos from a more Freudian point of view later.

The girls circled Em’s elementary school yard and came to rest near the guys. There was music playing and all seemed to be in good spirits. Chuck was shaking his considerable groove thing to a song playing on his trolley when suddenly Em showed the first observable sign of ball-and-chain-dom. She furrowed her perfectly waxed brows and pursed her glossy pink lips and made an “Oh no you won’t!” gesture surely meant only for Chuck to see. He continued to smile, but immediately stopped busting a move. Another groomsman razzed him loudly enough for J. to hear. “You can’t see it, man, but that chain is getting shorter and shorter, pal!”

J. and I ended our call so he could go in and walk his mother down the aisle. I told him I loved him and to be careful not to get poked in the eye with his mother’s little pointed hat. He called me a smart a** and promised to call when the knot had been tied.

By all accounts, the ceremony was lovely. The bridesmaids were regal, especially J.’s girls. The groomsmen, handsome and gentlemanly. J. read his intercessions sincerely in his meant-for-radio voice, all of them personal and meaningful to the families. Not a dry eye in the house. Except for Em’s. She had the practiced smile of a supermodel. All teeth. No gums. Dead eyes. It was after all, a performance.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the calliope music.

Wedding Bells

The Big Day.

It finally arrived. And shockingly, the world did not actually stop spinning on its axis. The angels didn't weep tears of joy. It still smelled like mulch/manure in my neighborhood and the lady across the street had allowed her recyclables to blow all over the block once again so they could collect in everyone's flowerbeds. Pretty much a day like any other.

Well it was for me, anyway.

Somewhere across town, a spoiled, self-centered 25-year-old was rising and shining, thanking the Blessed Mother for a beautiful day (I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth had there been so much as a whiff of precipitation...) and then remarking on her last poke at the snooze button, last piece of toast, last case of halitosis as an O'Malley. Aaaaaawwwww!

And several miles in another direction, J. would also be rising and shining, feeling more dread than anticipation. He'd have to go, smile for pictures, shake hands politely, remark what a lovely bride Em made, how the beauty of the day was outshown only by the vision of his sister's family, and speak his intercessions with conviction. Gagging on bile the entire time.

I'd had a wicked, wicked thought. He could do all that but what if he arrived looking completely ridiculous and straight-jacket ready?

I suggested he let me do his hair...a deep part just above one ear, and all his wild curls Brill Creamed into submission across the top of his head, where they can no longer be tamed and spring out in unruly defiance on the opposite corner of his scalp. Of course he'd first dress in the brown, plaid, polyester, wide-lapeled suit he'd have picked up for a 10-spot in a thrift shop near the projects. It would surely smell like moth balls or cedar, (the cedar making it a familiar childhood guinea pig olfactory trigger). It would be lovingly paired with a peach man-blouse, a pilled polyester tie in some kind of clashing stripe, and the finishing touches: a white pleather belt and white patent leather slip-ons, a la Pat Boone. (it's all about the accessories!) He could complete the look with square heavy rimmed glasses for an extra touch of class. He might even consider reading the intercessions like Jerry Lewis. Heeeyyyyyy, laaaddddyyyyy!

Girl can dream, can't she?

I am sure the day will go off without a hitch. Em has worked hard and I hope for the continued safety of all the folks who will be held hostage by her all day that it all goes well. Models of decorum. Visions of rare beauty. OK, it wouldn't kill me if the flower girl has one too many Shirley Temples and barfs on the dance floor during the Electric Slide.

I will not be there to take observant note of the details or the disasters. My story will be entirely second hand. I will be off enjoying the company of my children on the kick-a** weekend I've planned for them. They will never know the myriad events that led us there.

No wedding bell blues here.

Bon Appetite!

After an hour or so of J., his girls, and the remaining cast of thousands making painstaking trips down the 10th-of-a-mile aisle, unwilling bridesmaids meeting unenthusiastic groomsmen, repeated uninflected readings of "love is patient, love is kind, blah blah blah" and queries about who presents this woman, everyone retreated to the relative safety of their cars to trek to the oddly awkward social convention known as the Rehearsal Dinner.

I had a colleague once who referred to the rehearsal dinner as "when her family and his family get together and sniff eachother's butts." Ew. It was heinous enough without adding anyone's butt to the equation.

I am of course, sitting out this ritual as well. Not in the bridal party, not coming to the party, a party of one, really.

During one of J.'s readings of the intercessions, his guardian angel interceded on his behalf. Something at work had come up and he'd have to miss the dinner. Lord hear our prayer. So his girls went it alone, the teen leading the way for the tween and piling into Sheila's family's cars, not yet dripping with tin cans and streamers, to make their way to a nearby strip mall for franchise Italian food and, well, butt sniffing.

Oddly, they were seated with people they'd never met, but took their places and waited for their meals to be microwaved, reconstituted and warmed to perfection. I was imagining the menu - a bountiful array of dishes renamed for the occassion; Chicken Caccia-Chuck, Eggplant a la Em, and perhaps Mickey and Minnie Mousse for dessert.

The event, from all accounts, seemed to go as smoothly as anyone would have expected, saving one ill-tempered guest with way too much Chianti and an insufficient sense of humor.

But there was one show stopper.

After the dinner plates were cleared and coffee orders taken, the chef proudly wheeled out an elaborate three-tiered cake. A three-tiered cake decorated with the likenesses of a dozen or more Superheroes.

Even now I am unable to adequately comment at having to have written that last sentence.

Even though the cake had a few folks undoubtedly wondering if there was a 9-year-old celebrating his birthday on the same night, it would somehow explain the bizarre choice of honeymoon locations and at least a few of the famous couples being used to identify the tables at the reception.

I can't imagine what other surprises await the wedding guests. Maybe at the double-ring ceremony we'll learn that Chuck's wedding band is actually a Secret Decoder Ring.

My Spidey-sense is tingling.

Up, up and awaaaayyyyy!

Bridget Loves Bernie

It was coming like the dawn. A big, pink, frothy, meringue of a dawn. With the sickening perfumey stench of wedding madness.

The Bachelorette Party a safe distance behind us, and sufficient time having passed for all hangovers, twisted stiletto-clad ankles and red faces to have healed, there is very little standing between Em and Chuck and holy matrimony.

First up, the rehearsal.

I look at it like a pregame show. It is probably the first time Em and Chuck will actually devote a single synapse to the thought that this is really happening. This is their life about to change. The trolley is leaving the Land of Make Believe (next stop Hellacious Acres?)

So they’ll rehearse for the wedding. Has anyone bothered to rehearse for the marriage? I am sure they’ve discussed who will cook (Chuck) and who will clean (Chuck, again) and who will do laundry (Chuck, one more time) but what about the rest of it? The things that I am sure they have subconscious expectations about that may or may not be met? What happens when that train jumps the tracks? Who prepared Bridget and Bernie for all the guff they'd deal with? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Loves_Bernie)

What will happen when she finds that, let’s just say, his collection of videos includes a few that Mommom must never find that arrived in brown paper? Or her frantic desire to have kids right this minute is met with adamant NFW opposition? Or he continues to eat like a Viking and begins to look like the Big Fig? (www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyI3IL46yq4) Or she cuts her hair short and butchy a la Demi Moore in Ghost now that the wedding up-do is no longer on the checklist? (www.movieactors.com/.../demi_moore_photos.htm) How about the clicking sound his jaw makes when he eats that drives her batty enough to envision jamming one of the pickle forks she received as a shower gift into his carotid? What if her inability to re-cap anything – toothpaste, olive oil, nail polish, aspirin (for all those headaches) makes him want to snap her little manicured fingers off? I am sorry, Pre Cana doesn’t cover this material.

Em and Chuck will be saying their I Dos in the same church where Lars and I said ours. It is a beautiful, marble-filled church with a very long aisle, perfect for a bride’s entrance. It is humbling in its grandness – in a way I’ve always thought you should feel when entering a house of God. Humbled before Him.

The rehearsal could be a very humbling experience for Em. As she stands in the back of the church wearing her pink dress and holding her bouquet of shower gift ribbons, she will face the overwhelming reality that for all the anticipation and excitement, with all the planning finally coming to fruition, the next day, as it is that night, it is still just Chuck at the end of the aisle…with his overly long pursuit of an academic degree, his unwarranted smugness, and his alarming resemblance to Morocco Mole. (uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Morocco-mole.gif )

It is still just Chuck. And this is as good as it will ever get.

Bachelorette #1, Please Come Out!

It is one thing to be a woman of conviction. A woman of conviction can be counted on to have done some research. To have guiding principles. To have a moral compass. And a political affiliation.

Not to be confused with a woman of opinion. A woman of opinion is more likely to have probed an issue no further than the pages of People Magazine. To be guided only by her personal proclivities. To be of malleable moral fiber. And may not see the point of voting.

Em, I am coming to realize, is in the latter category. In fact, she may be the de facto Chairman of the latter category.

Nothing demonstrated her membership more so than the Bachelorette Party, which was a tipping point for many of the Raspberry Sherbet contingency. The bridesmaids had so many articles of incorporation to abide by that they could barely peaceably assemble. But they must. Every bridal tradition must be specifically adhered to, or there will be life-sized Hell to pay. And lets be honest, two of the eight (yes, EIGHT) bridesmaids live under the same roof as the bride. Unless there were plans to go over the wall by dark of night, Em’s sisters were going to have to live and breathe this particular shade of pink no matter how noxious the fumes.

For all her pontificating about the immorality of alcohol consumption and that she could never, ever teach in a public school with all those unruly Godless children running about and their amoral parents to contend with, she chose Holy Saturday, yes, Easter Eve, for her Bachelorette fete. So on the holiest weekend of the year, with the foundation of the Catholic Church eclipsing the most reverent period on the Jewish calendar, she’s going to trot out her Bachelorette-ness for all the world to see? Why? Because nothing quite expresses one’s piety like Cosmos and strip clubs? Skip the seder, ditch the rosary beads, load up the beer bong and let her rip!

I can see it now – dress the size of a stick of gum. Adorned with a veil fashioned from condoms. Wearing a sign that reads (when the misspellings are translated) “Kiss me, I’m the Bride” and drinking frothy libations from a mug that looks suspiciously like male genitalia.

And to make matters worse, it was planned to take place downtown. No fewer than forty-five minutes of highway driving away. And why? These are suburban gals. Bumpkins in the big city. Prime candidates for purse snatchings and public transportation SNAFUS and getting lost in true Hansel and Gretel fashion. At least one should be carrying a homing pigeon in her handbag.

But what sent me truly sailing over the edge of reason was the feigned, half-hearted attempt to include J.’s girls, but not really.

For a large portion of the planet’s population, this is a holiday weekend. A family-oriented day with a traditional family meal. And like all holidays for the divorced set, complicated and unrelenting in its demands.

J.’s girls by settlement agreement spend Holy Saturday with their mother and her family. Under penalty of contempt charges. (Talk about a cross to bear) In a rare moment of concern for another person’s happiness, Sandy offered to allow her family’s celebration to be infringed upon, so that the girls could at least partake in the chaste, pre-alcohol-soaked dinner plans. But the chosen – no, mandated – time, location and transportation logistics forced their exclusion. (At least a "no kid" Bachelorette Party makes sense) But again, the plans for the party, like those for the wedding, ensured that only those truly welcome would be able to attend. Who wants to be responsible for a tween getting home when there are Belly Shots to be consumed?

I maintain a theory that the party was so planned for one more added bonus feature. That being that the next day, while all were assembled at J.’s mom’s dinner table for Em's last holiday as an O'Malley (Aaaaawww!) she could go on an on with no end in sight about the prior night's festivities.

I will not be there to bear witness. Allelujah!

So Let It Be Written

After careful deliberation, I decided not to collaborate with Mom on my approach to this latest drama. Not that I didn't value her opinion - it was just that Mom didn't always have such compelling allegiance to social norms, and her advice could lead me astray. I might be jumping from the fire, not into the frying pan, but directly into Hell itself.

J. was in favor of the "let's see where this goes first" approach. My toes were figuratively right up to the edge of the abyss so I was a little concerned, but he knows his mother better than I ever will, so I decided to let him captain the good ship Loony Bin.

And then out of nowhere came the letter bomb I'd feared a few days earlier.

Evidently feeling like the spoken word and insults had failed to adequately articulate her opinions, and perhaps that she was becoming too easy to hang up on, Witchiepoo committed her full on bitch fest to writing, and sent J. the nasty-gram of the millennium.

The note was chock full of vitriol and hateful thoughts of me, brimming with accusations and condemnations of J. and went on for what appeared to be at least 1,000 words in that prim handwriting restating the rationale for the "no kid" model adopted for the Big Pink Frowse Fest.

I did not read it. J. suggested that what I did not read could not incite me to go riding off on my Huffy bike to carry out a head clunking spree.

There was one statement he shared (only one was deemed uninflammatory enough to be repeated) that made me think that it was just one more peice of Kool-Aid soaked propaganda attempting to degrade our stance on the wedding. She'd noted that Em and Chuck had "made an announcement two years ago that it would be a no kid wedding."

Who makes an announcement like that?

It would be like announcing "We're getting married and until we do, we are going to continue to practice safe sex." Or, "We're getting married in April, and we'll both be wearing underwear that day." Completely without relevance.

But writing it made it so. So let it be written, so let it be done.

The Mothers-In-Law

My drive home was frantic. I had set some existential wheels in motion and then gotten behind of the wheel of my car. The 2,000 pound bomb. Driving in a haze of emotionally fueled distraction is second only to driving asleep, at least from a hazard-to-one's-self-and-others perspective.


I accelerated and screeched to a halt and swerved and swore and apologized half-heartedly all the way through town to my block. The sight of Marnie leading a game of neighborhood-wide kickball gave me a small sliver of hope that life might go on in some familiar, if not warped, way.


My son saw my car and trailed me to the curb - pulling an envelope out of his hoodie as I stepped out. It bore my first name only, in the prim, parochial school, ruler-beaten into compliance penmanship I'd recognize anywhere. J.'s mom's.


After shaking away the fleeting panic that I'd just been handed a letter bomb, I opened it to find not a nasty note, but her copy of my house key.


Had she done it again? (Better check on the parakeet.)


I asked my son what she'd said when she'd delivered it.


"Nothing, Mom. It was between the doors." I was still going to check on the parakeet.

I was shocked at how much this skirmish bothered me. I am not accustomed to being the pariah. What's worse, it is not at all my tradition to lose favor with anyone. And I had no inclination toward fretting about a mother-in-law.

Lars had been no prize spouse but one problem we didn't have was his mother. She lived across the country and was so blatantly disinterested in her children that the scant few obligatory phone calls at holidays and birthdays could remain breezy and superficial. This one got a hair cut, that one learned to ride a bike, you should see my rose bush this spring, oh look at the time, better run, the laundry won't fold itself!


This would be different. Not only did we have something to fight about, we had actually fought about it. And instead of being a Caller ID-ed phone call gone to voice mail for a while, J.'s mom was local and ever present. Lurking in every local establishment. Envoys in every bar and restaurant. There were holidays to avoid, and birthdays, and graduations. It would never end. Hell, I could run into her anywhere. The dry cleaners. The car wash. The chiropodist.

I needed back up. I needed someone who'd dealt with a tough old Irish mother-in-law. Maybe even a wicked, embittered, envious sister-in-law. I needed (gasp!) my mother. I needed a plan for how I'd handle the next time Witchiepoo took the Vroom Broom out for a spin in my neighborhood.

It was risky business letting Mom in on the big brew-ha-ha. Mom was as fierce a defender of her cubs as any. Maybe more so. But Mom hasn't exactly built a reputation for taking prisoners and then obediently observing the Geneva Convention. Mom's killer instinct was on auto-pilot. She'd make Joan of Arc stammer. Subtlety was not her strong suit. It may not be in her wheelhouse at all.

If I sought her advice, and dared to tell her the story, and telegraphed that I was even a smidgen unsure...she might just take matters into her own capable, bitch-slapping hands. I'd already said words I couldn't take back. Mom would willingly napalm anything that remained standing.

Tempting.

Here Come the Judge

People are funny. It is a natural tendency to project your motivations and character traits onto other people. Dishonest people think other people are just as dishonest. People who love cats think everyone loves cats.

And sneaky, underhanded people think others are sneaky and underhanded.

Witchiepoo and her idiot minions obviously thought they were enlightening J. to my true nature by forwarding the voicemail message to him.

No secrets, he knew the moment I’d hung up. How telling that they’d thought otherwise.
Wonder what nasty little tidbits Em and Chuck are concealing until the I Dos are done?

It was clear that the brain trust was hell bent on creating a distraction from their own conduct by making this what they hoped would be a thorough condemnation of me. With my appalling personal qualities fully exposed, I’d be retired from life within their family and it could go on as it always had – problems festering, but no longer in plain view, like so many elephants in the room, no pun intended.

They could no longer pretend that this was not the agenda.

I called Endora again. She must have had an audience. One that was salivating like spectators at ringside dying for a bloodbath. She must have felt the pressure. She answered.

I identified myself and suggested that we try to talk about things. She screeched that she had not lied.

I stated again that I was not suggesting that she had lied. What she had said was true. What I’d hoped to learn was what motivated her to say it.

She said nothing. The Peanut Gallery must have been caught off guard.

“Were you trying to make trouble? Were you trying to make trouble for me and J.?” I suggested.

She protested but in doing so told me to “drop the authoritative tone.”

Well, friends, I am not a kid, and frankly am far too old to start getting scolded by someone else’s mother now.

I replied that I believe you teach people how to treat you and I was not about to allow myself to be treated like she had with the comments and the voicemails and her other underhanded tactics.

I must have poked at a nerve – had no one ever called this person on her personal conduct? This can’t be her first foray into accountability, can it?

She launched into a tirade not unlike Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. I feared for my parakeet. Somewhere in the rant she accused me of tearing the family apart.

Pretty cheap fabric if I can leave it in tatters from this distance.

She went on to say that everything was fine until I’d made a “big stink” about the wedding. I am sure Norman Bates would have said the same thing until his mother died.

I reasoned that I’d not made a so-called stink, I’d simply declined the invitation. It was my right to do so. Isn’t that the point of the response card? The possibility that someone might choose not to come? Perhaps in favor of a more pressing engagement like an F-Troop rerun festival.

She made her “no kid” argument. She’d clearly drunk the Kool-aid. Was I supposed to believe that if J.’s tween were not in the wedding, she’d be excluded based on her age? Hardly.

I dismantled that argument and again tried to calmly relate the reason I can’t send the message that my attendance would send to my uninvited kids.

I must have hit my mark. She had no cogent retort. She did have the presence of mind to reach for another grenade, however.

“You know what you are? You are a trouble maker! You are exactly the kind of person that isn’t happy unless they are going around making trouble!”

And from there the argument went spinning off in the direction of Hell itself.

Name calling. Comparisons to heinous people we both abhor. Insults that strike at one another’s heart. After mutual phone slamming (mine much less satisfying since it was a cell) I dialed J.

I ran on my sword. I had gotten sucked into a detestable argument. I’d taken my hands off the wheel. I actually gave Witchiepoo something to judge me for.

Bring on the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate award. It was all mine.

Witchiepoo and Her Accomplice, Stupid Bat

Truth be told, I had no great desire for an argument. I will make one if taken to task, with the passion and rigor of a Vietnam War protester, but to say I relish an argument would be off base. I am more in Elvis Costello's camp. More peace, love and understanding, please. I'd rather we just decide I am right together.

What I'd hoped to do was to inoffensively put Endora on her heels. I simply wanted to her to know two things:
1 - J. and I shared everything, and neither of us kept any secrets, and
2 - I would confront her anytime I took issue with her mistreatment of me (or J. for that matter, or any of our children, if she so dare) and she should be advised to stop doing things that she needed to be confronted for.

I expected this episode to be peacefully and quietly swept under the family rug with all the other dirty little unmentionables.

She surprised me and called me back.

She'd taken 24 hours to arm herself with all the self-righteous shock and indignation she surely stockpiled when she played and replayed the voicemail message for the rest of the family support group. She called my cell while I was at work - and could not answer because of another call on my office phone.

Her message was forceful and indignant as though she was spontaneously reacting to my message at that moment. (Again, no Emmy today, Endora) I knew her tone was an attempt to get me to back off.

After shrieking my name she yelled, "I am NOT playing phone tag! I can not imagine what I said to J. that isn't true. Buh-Bye."

And I am sure she and the squatters and Sheila were cackling at the sheer brilliance of the comeback. Touche! I'll have to write that one down!

This is not my rookie season, however, and I was warming up to hit the cover off the ball..

I picked up the message just moments after it had been left. I closed my door, sat calmly at my desk and pressed re-dial. It went straight to voice mail, natch. Chickens.

I used the same greeting as last time. And then calmly stated, "Evidently we are going to play phone tag. I wasn't calling to question the accuracy of your statement. I was calling to understand why you made it - as it made no sense in the context of the conversation you were having with J. Unless of course it was your attempt at making trouble where there isn't any, maybe to level the playing field in light of the trouble that Sheila and her family have caused. I'd like a call back today. I may not be at liberty to answer as I am at work but I will certainly call you back. Good bye."

I called J. and related the messages verbatim. No secrets. Even when I behave in a way that gives him the vapors.

A few minutes later, he called me back. He'd just received a forwarded recorded message of the message I'd left for Endora.

Witchiepoo has boarded the Vroom Broom and is sailing about Living Island in her little pointed hat. Evidently with Stupid Bat handling the control panel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.R._Pufnstuf#Plot)

The Gong Show

The weekend was tense -- I felt vulnerable and victimized and I put a lot of pressure on J. He understood why I was wigging over the intrusion and wanted my key back pronto, but part of him needed to believe that there was nothing untoward about what had happened. I am sure the parents of Son of Sam had that same emotion when all of America started pointing fingers.

I agreed to let J. massage this situation. He made time to visit his mother, presumably so she could not hang up on him, and prepared his argument like a litigator. It was time for the nonsense to stop.

My hero. Only with a much better alter ego than Underdog's Shoe Shine Boy and a considerably more confidence-inspiring voice.

At the appointed hour, he appeared and began his reasoned, heartfelt approach. And inevitably, Endora ran out of excuses and explanations. Loathe to simply admit to wrong doing on anyone's behalf, she dodged any further introspection by hurling a grenade of her own.

Months before, when I was still enjoying the relative warmth of J.'s family's loving embrace, I'd had a meaningful, heartfelt conversation with Endora. I shared worries and joys and thoughts I might share with my own mother over a cup of coffee. Now, many months and miles of winding road later, in a Fantasy Island style reversal of fortune, she chose to use my words against me, and came out with a zinger that stopped J. cold.

Gong! Conversation over.

That afternoon, I asked J. for the play by play, which he matter of factly related in straight-forward Walter Cronkite just-the-facts-no-commentary fashion.

I gasped. My turn to clutch the pearls.

"Did you say that?" J. asked.

"Not those words, J.," I replied. And then I went on to explain how Endora came to know what she had so artfully re-engineered and re-purposed into a searing Spiderman comic book beaker of acid to J.'s face.

Make no mistake, Endora had the cute little wash and set hairdo and the Penelope Pitstop pink lipstick, but on the inside lie the hard-boiled heart of Simon Bar Sinister. No Sweet Polly Purebread, she.

"J. why do you think she said that? I mean, said that, then?" It made no sense at all. Can no one in this family hold up their end of an argument responsibly?

"I dunno. It was really hurtful."

"Well, I don't think hurting you was her motivation. I think it was her desperate attempt to stop you from continuing down the logical path you'd started on with your confrontation. She could not let you make your closing argument. "

And what better way to knock someone off of what you think they perceive is their moral high ground than to shake the very foundation from which they preach?

She was not trying to hurt J.---what mother does that? Hurting him was just an unfortunate, yet evidently acceptable, side effect of her real intention. She was trying to stop him - stop his words, so she did not hear them - by making him suddenly less confident about why on Earth he'd defend me.

An adroit strike at his heart.

I dialed the phone. I am sure the suspicious timing of the appearance of my number on her Caller ID had her, and Em and Chuck (who were busily preparing to become squatters) and Sheila, who would be supervising the preparations to squat, all running around like Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snork in the Banana Splits Adventure Hour. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEcKIf90qYU)

At the sound of the tone, I greeted her cordially, and identified myself by first and last name, all business. I then said that the reason for my call was to talk with her about a comment that she'd made to J. that she had attributed to me. I left my number and asked for a return phone call.

Uh-oh, Chongo!

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

I remember the first time I saw it. Our babysitter, Nancy, who was not our regular babysitter, found it on the TV, adjusted the rabbit ears and popped some Jiffy-Pop. It was hilarious. Our regular babysitter was the Dark Shadows type who had a huge crush on Barnabus Collins. She was more into romance than humor. Nancy was the Carol Burnett-Phyllis Diller-LaughIn type. This movie was right in her sweet spot and a real treat for us.

And now, 35 years later, I am living it. All except for the pounds of cash under the Big W. All the mayhem, none of the money.

One Friday, my life now into a groove, I make plans to meet my daughter's Godmother Kate at a local pub so the three of us can have some dinner and girl talk while my son attends an NBA game with my ex and another father and son.

I leave a note for Marnie, who has also gotten into a groove watching the kids. Life is good. I inform her that my son will be going straight to Dad's after school and she'll have only my daughter, and please make sure that her hair doesn't look like a tumbleweed when I swing by and pick her up at 6.

Friday night, seated, our orders placed for Fish and Chips and a crock of French Onion soup already served, we settle in to a nice chat.

"Mom, Mommom was at the house today," my daughter announces as she twirls a long gooey string of cheese around her soup spoon.

I glare at Kate with wide disbelieving eyes. "That's not good." I mouth over my daughter's blonde head full of curls.

Trying not to sound shrill and panicked, I ask, "Really? Did you talk to her?" I desperately did not want it to freak her out to know that I'd not planned it that way, that Endora had taken liberties with her key, had trespassed, had gotten near my children when they were alone.

"Well, duh." Nice. I'd have to skip the reprimand in favor of becoming Sgt. Pepper Anderson.

"What did you say, sweetie?" I was failing abysmally at the illusion of casual conversation.

"Well, I walked in, and when I saw her on the couch I said, 'What are you doing here? I was expecting Marnie."

"And what did Mommom say, pumpkin?" Shrill. Quivering.

"She said, 'Oh, I didn't realize I was fired,' and left.


"Did she say anything else?"

"No, I just said, 'I don't know anything about that,' and then when she didn't say anything back, I didn't know what else to say so I just said, 'I heard Em and Chuck were going on their honeymoon to Disney World. What kind of honeymoon is that?'"

Out of the mouths of babes.

I had to ask. "So was she sort of laughing when she said that...about being fired? Was she smiling?" I hoped.

No, she was gritting her teeth.

Kate mouthed "Call me tomorrow," and we moved onto more pressing discussions about cheerleading and 5th grade boys.

Later that night I related the story to J. He thought maybe there was a misunderstanding. I thought differently.

First, my son usually arrived at 3. My daughter at 4. If Endora was truly there to babysit, where was the oh-my-God-he's-vanished phone call when my son never materialized? She didn't call. She didn't call, because she knew where he was. She knew where he was because she'd read the note...the note that began "Hi, Marnie!!" She'd have to admit to either incompetence or sneakiness. Neither a flattering color on her.

This "mistake" was just an act, and she was not winning an Emmy today. She had been on a missionof her own design: to see what information she could pry out of my children. So transparent. So cowardly. Such an abuse of authority over a child. Three calls to my house phone from Sheila between 3 and 4 dilluted whatever half-baked alibi she'd come up with.

My burning mad world question is, why would a woman of her age resort to such tactics? Seventy years of life experience didn't fill up her toolbox with ways to handle something this simple? If the Angst Fairy kept waking her in the night and she had to know the real story about her early retirement from babysitting, she could have asked me directly. She could have asked J. But she chose door number three, and look what Carol Merrill has for us, Johnny! It's a ticket the bowels of Hell! How dare she corner my child? She's lucky my son was off to his Dad's. He would have gladly given her his unsolicited list of colorful reasons he'd have for firing her.

I was seething. I didn't know what to do exactly, but I knew I could not do nothing. A taste of her own medicine seemed in order. I would appear at her door unannounced and unwelcome and in full on, well-heeled battle dress. I would boldly cross the threshhold and demand my key and then launch into a full gritted-teeth interrogation. Her motives. Her method. Her half-wit accomplice who didn't know enough not to make not one but three phone calls to the scene of the crime. (Barnie Fife was a more competent partner.) And with my uncanny talent for the toe-to-toe confrontation, I would hang her with her own words, which would eventually take on a whimpering quality. I would not relent, even as she called for backup.

Mad, mad, mad, mad world indeed.

M-I-C, See You on the Honeymoon!

K-E-Y, Why? Because nothing says "romance" like a honeymoon in Disney World. Why sunbathe topless in St. Tropez when you can take a whirl together in the Teacups? Who needs a photo of the happy couple in front of the Eiffel Tower when we can get one with Goofy and Dopey?

It is all beginning to make sense now. This couple has spent two years planning the wedding and about 45 seconds thinking about the marriage.

There has been so much talk about the trappings and the veneer and the superfluities --and how of course they compare to Em's friends' plans for jumping the broom this year. It is not about substance. It is about facade. It is about intemperence. It is about the moment. It is an illusion much like the one created by Disney.

I am not an authority on the subject of Disney. I have never been there. I have never wanted to go there. I know it has a reputation for excellence. It just holds no appeal to me.

Magic Kingdom? Exactly. It is sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors. How else can they get millions of people each year to board planes with toddlers, travel to a climate on par with Hell, and to spend what equates to the GNP of Guam to ride amusement rides in the company of people dressed up as cartoon characters? Fully grown adults, speechless over a greeting from Pluto and stammering because Cinderella winked and smiled.

Caught up in the magic. Believing the illusion. Suspended disbelief. It is genius.

And then it's over. The flight home is maudlin. Back to a reality weighted with responsibility, commitments, obligations, and decisions. Hardly a magic carpet ride.

Not so for Em and Chuck! No, they had gotten on the Arrested Development shuttle and were not about to give up their seats.

J., who was spending far too much time at the dress shop these days, was present for one more gathering-cinching-pinking-hiking-pinning-hemming session for the raspberry sherbet ensemble when he overheard the latest juicy morsel of intel. He could hardly wait to have a chinwag on the topic.

"Guess where Em and Chuck will be living when they get back from Disney?" he asked in a snarky tenor.

My mind raced. I couldn't begin to imagine. It was hard to predict where the insanity would stall and go sputtering to a halt.

"They are moving in with Mommom."

Surely the pixie dust was making my head swim.

"Mommom's???? Haven't they had enough celibacy?"

"Yes indeed, Mousketeers. They are both moving from their parents homes right into Mommoms," J. observed. It was for sure that Chuck would not be chasing Em around the dining room table in her panties any time soon.

"Do you think they are afraid of intimacy, J.? Do you think this is a convenient excuse not to get close? When I've seen them together, they don't even act like a couple, much less one who is looking forward to finally getting their hands on eachother. It can't be financial. They've been engaged for two years. They must have saved at least first and last month's rent for something!"

I thought about it a second longer and it dawned on me. It was much simpler than that. Oh, it might be those things, too, but the primary reason was not so complicated and Freudian. It was a much more basic, self serving, Maslow's hierarchy of idiotic needs thing.

Em and Chuck simply wanted to be able to say that they were living in a 3 bedroom center hall colonial with a pool and a prestigious address. Simple. Pathetic and shortsighted, but simple.

Watch the tram car, ladies and gentlemen. This is an express to Hellacious Acres.

C'mon Get Happy!

So I've been kicked off the Partridge Family bus, who cares? I decided to c'mon-on-get-happy anyway. If that is the worst thing that happens to me this year, I have hit the existential lottery.

Either we'll all find a way to move on from this or we'll all carry a grudge to the grave, or some form of both. Grudge, schmudge. I am in Human Resources, for God's sake. I am a practiced don't-care-if-you-hate-me kind of gal. HR people who manage not to get eaten alive are not thin skinned and don't have wimpy self esteems. We have long ago stopped dreaming of being voted to the Homecoming Court by the masses. We form our relationships one at a time...never a big fan base. So some 25 year old half-wit figuratively thumbed her nose at me and mine. So what? The reviews won't kill me.

What galls me, really, is how distracting and looming and oppressive all this wedding nonsense has become for something that just a few months ago used to just painlessly ricochet off the surface of my brain. In the whole Partridge Family scheme of things, this wedding had been no more important than Tracy standing there dinging her triangle in the back in her knee socks. Part of the picture, but maybe only one line of script. Now, it's as if Miss Tracy has run up front, shoved Keith and his shag haircut off the stage and is trilling "I woke up in love this morning!"

And we're not supposed to be dying for the show to end?

Worse...Em's let-'em-eat-cake proclamations to her handpicked collection of serfs were limitless and unforgiving. There was an edict that J.'s tween get pink matchy-matchy braces on her teeth so they'd not clash with the bridal accouterments. (I am sure Em thinks she showed generous restraint by not demanding the placement of braces be delayed until after the wedding. It was probably her Lenten sacrifice not to insist.) There was the "only a trim" regulation so that everyone could be successfully whipped and teased and backcombed into the designated up-do. And my personal favorite, the warning that no one dare gain a pound. (Coming from a former chubbins, this was rich. And clearly Chuck had missed the memo - his rolling acreage taking on the size and shape of the Louisiana Purchase) The expectation of full compliance with the assignment of tasks at every family gathering - at this celebration we'll fold programs, at that event, we'll curl favor ribbons. It was clear everyone was in service to the Queen.

But Em's fiefdom did not extend to me. I had already told J. that I would not risk a discussion, much less an argument, about the Big Debacle within earshot of the kids. And since I had little trust that it would not magically materialize in the midst of regular dinner table drivel, I would need to make myself scarce. I would not be present to bear witness to Em blowing out the candles for the last time time as an O'Malley (Aaawwwww!) and I would be hopping down to bunny trail in another direction on Easter Sunday.

And if we never build a bridge or fill this chasm, life will go on, not as we knew it, but as we'd come to understand it. The Partridges sang it best:

We had a dream, we'd go travelin' together,
We'd spread a little lovin' then we'd keep movin' on.
Somethin' always happens whenever we're together
We get a happy feelin' when we're singing a song.
Trav'lin' along there's a song that we're singing, C'mon get happy!

All in the Family

With my Big Ticket items off of my emotional checklist, I could focus on other things: my taxes, Spring Break, updating my shoe wardrobe.

J. still had a full plate - piled high with the need to have his family hear him out. Just to be heard. Not to change anything. It was clear that the dye had been cast (in that alarming shade of raspberry sherbet!)

He called his mother to see if there was any possibility of a family fireside chat. She didn't exactly jump at the idea, but did seem to be listening (or at least not actively arguing). A few weeks had passed. Maybe there had been some reflection on the situation. Maybe there had been a few confessions to the hairdresser, a lunch with the Widows Club, a hand or two of pinochle with some friends, where someone, someone, by the grace of God, shared an objective dissenting opinion - and the other ladies had nodded their little blue-haired heads in agreement.

J. and Endora inched toward the DMZ.

"I would like to get over to watch the kids in some way again," she said. "Maybe a day or two a week." J. took that gesture as an olive branch. Perhaps an acknowledgement of some culpability in our going so far off course.

Or not.

The day of the shower arrived. Em, even with nary a brain cell pinging around in her spacious head, had managed to see through the ploy, and purposefully, admittedly, kept 100 ladies waiting for 45 minutes. I would have showered her with more than happiness, I can tell you that. J.'s girls were among the guests marvelling at every crock pot and towel set and negligee and reported that the party was nothing to write home about, just another obligation on the road to the Big Day.

To J.'s mom, it was Mardi Gras. She raved on and on about every detail (omitting of course Em's socially reprehensible intentional tardiness) including that Sandy had sent a generous gift. And that by comparison, she'd taken note that there was no gift there from me.

And Endora, cleared for takeoff, is on her broom and riding once again.

Truth be told, I had a gift. A lovely, creative, generous, thoughtful gift. I'd put more effort into its selection and purchase than I should have. But a gift is a reflection of me, and that my friends, is something I don't take lightly. No, it was not waiting at the shower to be opened in front of hundreds of pairs of eyes, wide with anticipation. How was I supposed to get her gift to the shower? The bride, and in fact all of Sheila's grown children, inclusive of the ones with college degrees and steady paychecks, live at home. Surely delivering the gift to the house would have "spoiled" the surprise (and would have been yet another thing to blame me for). I'd planned all along to send it with J. to Em's birthday dinner the following week. ("It's my last birthday as an O'Malley! Aaawwwwww!") Excuse me for not twisting myself into a pretzel making an effort to get it there in advance. I think we all understand why.

It was becoming clear. Everything I would do, from now until every stakeholder was too old and feeble minded to remember this whole wedding fiasco, was going to be subject to wide spread familial scrutiny. I was the family Meathead.

Not to worry though. Because I, like Michael Stivic, had been criticized, and more often lauded, by far, far better people than these. Far better people than these.

Those were the days.

Schlemiel! Schlimazel!

In a rare run of good luck, Mother Nature took kindly to my plight and helped me out with a few more unsightly snow storms. The first few weeks I didn't have to actually fire Mrs. Kravitz, I simply had to cancel her, using the piles of snow, the slippery sidewalks, the treacherous roads (Oh my!) as worthwhile excuses. "Don't you worry your pretty little head, I will make do..."



So now I needed to figure out how to handle the uniquely insulting invitation...it would be arriving shortly. And since I held a job outside the home, a novelty in the warped new world order I'd entered, it may be picked up and opened and read before I've even EZPassed out of my company's neighborhood.



I needed to create a distraction for me and the kids. Something fun to look forward to. Something we'll count down the days on the calendar toward with gleeful anticipation. A weekend at a resort! An amusement park! Something I just-by-coincidence plan for the same exact day as the wedding and of such enormous gravitational pull that we hands-down choose it over the wedding when the invitation arrives and OH NO LOOK AT THE DATE! I go on line. I sleuth and search and google and bing until I find just the thing. I book the tickets and hotel and tell the kids. We are having a weekend of fun together. They'll have no idea which twin has the real Toni.



Days go by and the invitation arrives. Heavy. Embellished. Calligraphied. Unbending. How apropos.



I open it -- again it is addressed to my married name. (Is no one willing to let her die a natural death?) I vow to call Em by her maiden name for at least a year after her wedding. And maybe even habitually misspell her first born's name. And then mispronounce the married name for all eternity. Maybe even say it like Laverne Defazio might say it.



The invitation is a clear attempt at the appearance of wealth. The gold raised print. The heft of the paper. Oh, and the wedding cake special order stamps. Aaaaawww. What is so odd is that it defies the rules of true formality with its embellishments and the odd off-center placement of the print. And it toggles back and forth between formal and casual language in a schizophrenic identity crisis. Em must have just skimmed the less-is-more section of the book.



Its arrival brings out the Great Gazoo in me. I want to enlighten the Dum-Dums a la Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, perhaps causing a little trouble along the way. Should I accept the invitation and then not show...leaving a vacant seat next to J. where the waitress on autopilot gamely serves prime rib and red bliss potatoes and green beans almondine to no one in particular? Or should I accept for all three of us and write a sweet note forgiving Em her calligrapher's oversight and stating that we'll all be there with bells on? Or do I decline and write a terse and brutally informative note detailing exactly the myriad reasons I would not bother to even mark this non-event on my calendar?



In the end, I chose to be only me. I colored within the lines and respectfully completed the response card. I declined for me, and me alone, using my full, reclaimed, restored to dignity, maiden name. Period.



Two days after I place the Respond-So-Very-Promptly (Thank you, Laverne) into the mail, I got a mid-day voicemail message from J.'s mom - at a time she'd know I'd not be home. She is clearly confused...perhaps rattled by the news of my daring declination, which had gotten the partyline abuzz. She is cancelling her babysitting obligation for the week. She's "all booked up." But it is a week she's not due to sit...



In the words of one of my favorites - Warren Zevon - Bring lawyers, guns and money. The s*** has hit the fan.



I saw an opportunity and pounced. I called her back and left a sweet, melodious message. "Not a problem, Mom. With the weather being so unpredictable, and Spring Break coming, and then surely you'll be busy with the wedding, why don't I just plan to have the girl up the street cover you for the foreseeable future? Don't give it a second thought. OK? Thanks!"



Pink slip unobtrusively, yet deftly, delivered.

Family Affair

As I gassed and braked and tobogganed my way home that day, J. sat silently in the passenger seat, more than likely stewing in the bubbling cauldron of familial swill we'd inadvertently fallen into.

I, behind the wheel, was trying to figure out what to do about his mother in her babysitting role. I wanted to handle this gracefully but I really didn't think I could have her continue watching the kids. (And in 20 years of working in Human Resources, I'd fired a lot of people, but firing your boyfriend's mother takes a special kind of backbone.) To be truthful, she'd really gotten my hackles up, and I was dreaming of greeting her at the door and collaring her, and then marching her back to her car with her toes barely touching the ground. How dare she take advantage my children's trust?

I decided to consult my very own personal Mr. French. The world's foremost authority on all things rich with family-social-etiquette pitfalls. My sister.

My detailed retelling of our most recent tale of woe was met with a multitude of OMGs, No-she-didn'ts, and other expletives unfit for print. She may have been in disbelief, but she was very convicted in her immediate conclusion.

"You need a new babysitter. She can't come back. Even once. She betrayed your trust. I'll help you until you find someone."

Betrayed. I imagined Mrs. Kravitz searching and seizing all manner of information and filing them away for future reference. Suddenly a dusty house was the least of my worries. What if she'd inspected my checkbook? Scrutinized my medicine cabinet? PERUSED MY BEDSIDE TABLE DRAWER????

My sister was right (as usual) I did have to give Mrs. Kravitz the broom. And it was for sure that I was not going to get all gussied up to sit for hours feigning the slightest bit of interest in the shower. In a subsequent conversation between J. and Sheila she offered that my daughter could attend the shower. (So BIG of everyone to allow her to come! Why? So she could get more pie-eyed about an event she will not be invited to?) I needed to re-RSVP - to state that I had a conflict. Let it remain a matter of intrigue as to whether it was a conflict with something on my calendar or a conflict of an emotional nature. Only my hairdresser will know for sure.

I rifled through a stack of papers looking for the invitation and struck oil. In a stroke of packrat luck, I not only found the pink frilly invitation, but a letter I'd gotten nearly a year ago, rolled and stuck in my door handle, which began,

"Hi! I'm Marnie. I'm a certified babysitter..." Marnie, bless her 9th grade little heart, lived 4 doors away. Many thanks to the patron saint of babysitters. I made the call and offered the steady assignment. Then phoned in my phony baloney regrets about the shower. Showers of happiness, my derriere.

Now...how to nudge Mrs. Kravitz toward the door...

One Ringy Dingy, snort, snort

In another one of Mother Nature's little jests, while J. and I took in a comedy show near my office across the bridge in another state, WHAM! Another 18 inch snow fall. We emerged from the show, took in all 10 feet of visibility and went immediately to check into the hotel that hosted the comedy club. Hilarious.

The next day, looking a little less sporty than usual, we bellied up to the breakfast buffet and had a remarkably nice breakfast in spite of our hygiene and the worsening storm. Unable to fathom another day and night in the same clothes (I wasn't crazy about my outfit to begin with) we decided, against all publicly broadcast advice, to brave the weather and drive home.

And as if by divine intervention, J.'s phone rang just as I finished brushing with the the pre-pasted throw-away toothbrush I'd gotten from the front desk. It was Sheila --- looking for me. I was loathe to take her call but J., bless his heart, handed the phone right over. He motioned that he was going to clean off my car, but I motioned (OK, wildly gesticulated) that if he left the room I'd brain him with the King James Bible the Gideons were kind enough to have left.

Sheila began to recite the purpose of her call to me, in that hoarse, slow, mood-stabilizered voice she has. I offered that there was no need to explain. I understood her decision about the wedding and was not stomping my feet and holding my breath for a reversal. I was simply going to decline the invitation. I could not in good conscience get dressed up and walk out the door leaving my kids behind that night to join everyone else in the family. Mommom was babysitting them everyday. They considered J.'s girls sisters....yadda yadda yadda. I would love to be there but could not. I understood her decision, could she kindly accept mine?

She noted that she was thinking it would be nice for me...that I could get all dressed up and go out for an evening with J. without my kids. Newsflash, Sheila. I have shared custody. I can put on a dress and go out every night for 26 weeks a year. I am not looking for one more night out without kids, and if I were, it would not be to dine on prime rib and red bliss potatoes at a hotel near the local airport.

She went on to note that my invitation was an expression of inclusion, not exclusion. And now she's embarrassed because my not being there would be a glaring absence and would draw attention to her finances.

Her finances? I had never given a moment's thought to her finances (and evidently neither had Em!) but for one thing, ummmm, I was fairly certain that no one ever mistook Sheila for a New York socialite. Secondly, if I had thought about it, the excesses of Em's wedding minutia would suggest a gal bent on giving the impression that she was to the manor born, finances be damned. I would think Sheila and Tim were into 2nd mortgage territory but not "can't afford two more plates" territory. But like I'd said, I had not given a crumb of gray matter to who was paying what for whatever.

I elaborated and empathized. I told her about my wedding planning...about the brand new grown up siblings I'd picked up late in the game, and cashing my paycheck the morning of my wedding so that I could pay the florist. I was not a stranger to the experience of going bald over a wedding. I just could not make her "no kid" decision understandable to my kids. We considered us a family. This would suggest otherwise.

And then she made a grave tactical error.

She mentioned that she'd heard that I was taking my kids on a vacation with out J. and his girls. I replied that I had no Earthly idea what she was talking about. We'd been taking family vacations together for 2 years. And what, by the way was the point? She went on, providing what she thought might be proof - proof! - that we are not really a family, saying that her mother had related to her that my kids had told her while she was babysitting that the three of us were taking a trip to Florida.

Looks like Mommom was really Mrs. Kravitz. And how clever of her to use my children's words, their innocent words, as ammunition in Sheila's amateur argument with me. Pink slip time.

With that foul ball safely out of play, Sheila returned to the still lame, still indefensible, "no kids" position. "What will I say to the other parents whose kids aren't invited if yours are there?" she whined.

As if anyone would ask. Who does that? "Well, Sheila, if someone were so rude as to ask, you'd say "They are my brother's family." Could it be any simpler than that? But she hung herself with her own words.

She argued that "There are kids who are family that are not invited." Exactly. Family. And in her eyes, we were not. Didn't make the cut, but I was just supposed to show up anyway so she would not be responsible for J. looking lonely and miserable that night. How my children might feel was of minimal importance.

I flicked the phone back to J. who was ashen. "Do something with her," I said, and headed out to drive home in the blizzard.

Truth or Consequences

A few days went by - I was hopeful and therefore, planning. My kids would need Easter outfits which would easily translate to wedding outfits. I saw a trip to the Mall on the horizon. A navy blazer and Bucks for him, and maybe a real tie that I could teach him to knot. She'd need the complete ensemble: dress, wrap, shoes and jewels. We'd need a round of hair cuts. I already have a fabulous dress earmarked for the Big Day, oddly in the same shade of raspberry sherbet we've been hearing about. (And no, Em, you do not own the color, I believe Lilly Pulitzer does and has for decades!)

Before I could swipe my credit card even once, the moment of Truth arrived. I hurried to pluck the shower invitation out of the mailbox. And yes, it was addressed using my married name (ugh!) ...misspelled no less. (Really?) I almost missed the obvious.

It was addressed to me. Me, alone. Again.

The bride's playbook would surely dictate that the invitation include my daughter if she were invited to the wedding. Did Em fumble the snap or was something more sinister afoot? I called J. to give him my bride-speak translation of the latest smoke signal. He decided it was time to call Sheila and just ask the question.

Later that night, J. and I spoke on the phone and eventually the conversation turned to the newly deciphered plan for the Big Day. J. attempted to explain the blueprints.

My kids were not going to be invited. Period. Even if we paid for them to attend. It is a "no kid" wedding.

But it wasn't. There were a few kids in the wedding. Some of them quite a bit younger than our tweens. And how can it be explained to two of the tweens that the other tween was invited and they weren't, simply based on their ages? The "no kid" defense would ring false. Everyone knows kids are short, not stupid. And everyone knows you don't break up a set.

And why all the mystery? Why wasn't J. given the courtesy of a phone call months ago when this plan was obviously hatched? I am the first to admit that there is scant reliable advice on how to handle some of these modern day family configurations and the situations they create. I planned my wedding the same year Estelle married Bill. All of a sudden I had two siblings with whom I'd not grown up whose families I needed to consider. But consider them, I did. I called and asked what would feel right to everyone.

And so, acknowledging that there is a huge dearth of useful information on this subject, and your conscience is your only guide, why did Sheila's conscience, and Em's conscience, and Chuck's and his parents' for that matter... why did their collective conscience guide them to so offhandedly dismiss an issue of such monumental importance to J.?

The question, now asked and answered, revealed much more than I'd hoped to learn. I was upset for J. I was upset for me. I was wounded for my kids. And after a bout of tears and some terse language, I was rational. As much as I'd love to step out in my perfect pink dress with my perfectly turned out children, on the arm of the man I love, I would have to take a seat on the bench and sit this one out.

We had the Truth.
And now the Consequences were clear.

Vedddy Interrrresting...But Stupid

The mid-winter doldrums proved anything but dull. Mother Nature threw her considerable weight around and dumped record breaking amounts of snow through out January and February, just to keep us guessing. And shoveling.

It was just after one such snow fall that J. and I got some good news. We were sitting at his mom's table looking at jewelry she'd gotten out to consider wearing with the dress she'd bought for the Big Day. I was trying on all the baubles, a favorite past time of mine. She mentioned that she might wear the ring I had on to the shower.

The Shower. It amazes me that the tradition that is universally loathed, even by brides, has survived as long as it has. Ginger ale and sherbet punch, salad sopped in French dressing, and everyone passing around toasters and gravy boats oooohing and aaaahhhing like they were so many rare Egyptian artifacts. You'd think survival of the fittest would have taken care of that ritual.

She showed me the invitation and explained the clever little ploy to get Em there unwittingly (Is anyone, even the most dim-witted bride ever surprised by these things?)

Then in a fit of chuckling she disclosed (snort, snort) that the bridesmaids had addressed my invitation to my married name. (Oh stop! My sides ache from laughing! No really, stop!) And then, evidently even funnier still, was that J.'S EX-WIFE'S INVITATION WAS ADDRESSED TO HER MARRIED NAME, TOO! (I can not express what a gas this truly is!)

I looked at J. incredulously and hee-hee-heed along with his mother momentarily before getting down to business.

"Sandy has been invited?" I asked as steadily as I could.

Well silly me, sure she has! She should be at the wedding to see the girls in their bridesmaid dresses! (Ever hear of a camera?) So she had to be invited---and therefore invited to the shower, too. (Em clearly misread the playbook on this subject...)

My mind scrambled to regain its horizontal hold.

"Shall I tell them you'll come?" she asked, wiping tears of hilarity from her cheeks.

"Suuuuurrrre," I said slowly, struggling mightily with two competing thoughts.

The first: Sandy was invited?
Then I'd have to go looking fabulous in my very uptown sleeveless Brooks Brothers LBD. Better start the pushups tonight.

The second: OMG SANDY WAS INVITED!!!!
Clearly the pool of potential wedding guests had broadened if they'd opened their hearts wide enough to include the very person who would not rest until J.'s life was hacked completely to collops. Perhaps they'd invited Sheila's colorist. Chuck's little league coach. J.'s mom's chiropodist. Surely the list would now include my children.

How could it not?

The Homecoming

The holidays arrived.

And where were the Baldwin sisters with their "recipe" when I needed them?


There is one simple truth about divorce. It changes everything. It doesn't matter whether your divorce is acrimonious or a peaceful parting of company. Whether you gave it 3 years of heartfelt effort in counseling or ran screaming from the bonds of matrimony with your hair on fire. From the moment one spouse declares that they won't be growing old together, everything changes.

Some changes are small - I suddenly had to give a hang what days trash is collected in my neighborhood. Others are emotional minefields fraught with the potential for calamity. The holidays fall into the latter category.

And they come every year, as reliably as the circus. And with them they bring the requisite sideshow entertainment. All too familiar. Not nearly entertaining enough.

There is Once-A-Year Joe, the guest who arrives late and leaves only when you've begun to turn out the lights for the evening. And while he drinks all of your good beer, which he expects you to fetch for him, he assumes other more rational adults will happily watch his children. (They won't.) And invariably one unattended child smears pate on your foyer walls while another smashes a Christmas ornament to smithereens. A sentimental favorite, natch.


And of course, there is the annual pilgrimage homeward of my gypsy mother, Estelle, and her reluctant accomplice, Bill. Always welcome but anticipated with a steaming, congealed serving of angst. When Estelle and Bill come calling, we are all advised to buckle our seat belts.


And since there is a court-ordered way to handle things like holidays, as if we needed any more conductors in the orchestra pit, there is a steroidal dose of feverish running around. We go dashing through the snow, blowing in and out of people's beautifully decorated homes, scarfing down half bites of cocktail weenies and hurried gulps of Christmas cheer before hurling the gifts at the hosts and stashing their unopened gifts to us before hastily kissing everyone goodbye and promising we'll find time to linger in the new year. And then we are off, careening over the river and through the woods to the next destination with the belt of my overcoat caught in the car door and dragging in the muck in the street.


If there is one thing I appreciated about the frenetic pace this year it was the imposed limit on the amount of exposure to the surlier people in our lives and, as if by divine providence, less potential for unwelcome shoulder-rubbing with the bride and groom amidst the choking fumes of wedding mania.

So, with a truncated visit to the dining table at J.'s mom's, I managed to avoid bearing witness to the feigned nostalgic lament that this would be Em's "Last Christmas as an O'Malley! Aaaaaaawwwwww!" Just as we'd bewailed the last Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Columbus Day as an O'Malley. And would likely devote a scrap book page to the last single-zero tax return, last visit to the dentist, last tire rotation, last bounced check, last box of Dexatrim, last trip to a public restroom. All together now, "Aaaaaaaawwwwww!"


And so while Em and Chuck were busy chronicling their lasts, J. and I were trying to establish some firsts. Because while we have made a yeoman's effort to maintain consistent homage to the traditions our children have come to expect, we need to create some new traditions and expectations. The holidays are forever changed. They will never be easy. We need to take deep breaths and accept that many of the traditions we'd built over decades of marriage and family life had had their swan song. How could we half-way do the things we did with people with whom we can no longer be confined to the same room?

In between whirlwind visits and inhaled hors d'oeuvres and rushed gift exchanges, we'd make time to focus on the season, and collect moments. A look on a child's face opening a gift they'd hoped for. A beaming expression of thanks. A twirl in a beautiful Christmas dress. A story told in giggling fits and starts before the fire. A pile of family on the sofa watching Ralphie's plight in A Christmas Story.

None of this will be pasted into a scrap book with rickrack and glitter. But hopefully all of it will make an impression strong enough that when we reflect on these holidays in years to come, we remember them vividly - and as joyous and familial and candlelit and fragrant and whole. You might call it my grown up Christmas wish. Aaaaaaaawwww.

Goodnight, Jim-Bob.

Nanny and the Professor

With confirmation in hand that the plans for the Big Day included a Big Snub, with two of our children honored as bridesmaids, while the other two would not be extended the courtesy of an invitation, I had to work extra hard to reel in my inner Mama Bear. I had more pressing issues. Clunking heads together would have to wait for another day.

With one child in her last year of elementary school, and the other entering his first year of the Hell that is middle school, I needed a part time nanny. Not just any nanny. One who could drive.

And one who could deftly heat up a home cooked, pre-portioned meal like a modern day Libbyland TV dinner (http://theyalwayscomeback.blogspot.com/search/label/LibbyLand) and then get my cheerleader and offensive lineman into uniform and to practice before I even left my office.


J. suggested his mother.

"Why not?" he asked. "She could use the money and the kids could get the full-on Mommom treatment." I imagined that would include both the "Go ahead and have an extra cookie" and the "Poke your sister one more time and I'll snap your finger off" treatments. I warmed to the idea. It's not like there was an overstock of grandparents lying about the place. My mother has been nomadically roaming the South moving into and out of houses for a dozen years. My ex's mother has shown some decency by keeping her particular brand of crazy a safe distance away on the West Coast. The granddads, sadly, had passed.


"Ok," I said, and made the call.


I could lower my neurosis a notch with an adult in the house who had already successfully raised two children (more or less). On the other hand, I've known J.'s mom for a dog's life, but truthfully, how well did I really know her?

Will she cringe when she sees that my flower beds look like they are tended by Lilly Munster?

Will she gasp in horror at my taste in furniture? Drapes?? Lamps???

Will I get a lecture on balanced meals and healthy snacks when she gets a good look inside my cabinets?

OMG my medicine cabinet!!!

Will she cringe at the dust bunnies blowing like tumbleweeds under my credenza and the sticky pool of melted and refrozen water ice that formed inside the freezer when "somebody" left the door open during a double episode of Drake and Josh?

Better take an objective look at the liquor cabinet, hello!

Or worse, will I come home to find laundry folded and furniture dusted and rugs vacuumed because "no one should have to live in that condition just because their mother works."

Breathing into a paper bag, I reluctantly decide that the benefit of having my mother-in-law babysit outweighed the risks, even if she is only a reasonable facsimile. There was a lot of good that could come out of this. The kiddos would get some Mommom bonding time. And maybe that could eventually lead somewhere.

Because as it looks now, unless someone has a change of heart in the next few months, or grows a normal sized frontal lobe, the Big Day was going to be a Big Debacle.

How could I, on that day, put on my beautiful dress and leave my kids with a sitter, a different sitter, while I step out for a big family event with the man I love and the family I hope to join, without them, when everyone else is there?

It may not matter to them that night. But how will they feel on the next holiday, when we are sitting around J.'s mom's table looking at all 75,000 pictures, and they realize that all the people at the table are in the pictures except for them? Right down to the two guys at the end of the table whose names I can never remember. (Who I swear were the inspiration for Chucky Margolis and Allen from the Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show http://www.tvparty.com/varhudson.html) I know how they'll feel. They'll feel like I traded them for a new family. One they thought they were part of, but must not be after all.

It doesn't matter that Em and Chuck want a wedding with no kids. There will be kids - they just found a way to include the ones they want there by putting them in the bridal party. And excluding the rest. No negotiating.


I need to break the news to J. that if this is the Juvenile Jury's verdict (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenile_Jury), I will not make a fuss, but I can not in good conscience attend an event this significant without the kids. I will not be on his arm that night. It is not a choice I can knowingly make at the expense of any child, much less my own.

The verdict is in. Sentencing in April. Bail is set at $200 a plate.

Elementary, my dear J.

I am trying my darndest to give Em and Chuck the benefit of the doubt, to have a little faith in human nature. Believe in the innate goodness of people. Surely, this will all work out and I have panicked for nothing. J. is right. His sister Sheila, though passive and woeful and simple, is after all, also a grownup and well meaning. J. is her only sibling. She doesn't even have brothers- and sisters-in-law. Surely she'll show some deference to him and at least consider all that he has been through and appreciate how happy he is - and want to bring all that happiness together that day.



But still, I need to sleuth. I am unable to proceed with anything until I know the plan. And curses on these people, they are going to make me dig for answers.



My first opportunity is the Labor Day BBQ. I walk into J.'s Mom's house to see the dining table covered, not with potato salad and deviled eggs, but several dozen identical silver picture frames, all standing facing the same direction.



I walk to the living room and greet J., his mother, the bride and groom, and a few other people. I ask - "Did I miss a photo shoot? What are all the picture frames for?"



Em gleefully but very matter of factly states, as if I should have known this, that they are using them to identify the tables. Instead of Table 1 and Table 2 and so on, we will be seated at tables identified by famous couples whose pictures will be in the frames. (Because plain old numbers are so last season?) We could be at the Bogey and Bacall table or the Lois Lane and Clark Kent table. Maybe even the Lady and the Tramp table. Not having a poker face, I am sure I did a lamer than usual job of concealing my "Are you kidding me?" look.



"We didn't want to use numbers, " Em says screwing up her face in distaste. (Oh right! Because somehow numbers have long outlived their usefulness for things like this. Who uses numbers to identify anything any more? Social Security numbers? Useless!)



"Oh!" I say brightly. "Can J. and I be at the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton table?" I was distracted by J. huffing Orange Crush out of his nose, but I am sure I heard a gasp and saw at least a few hands fly to clutch at imaginary pearls. How dare I throw out an impure thought with all the pristine, virginal wedding thoughts in the room! Wishing that a bottle of Jack Daniels would magically appear next to the pitcher of lemonade, I left the room to sit by the pool and watch my children swim...and maybe pick up a few clues.



Nearly the entire evening passed before I got what I needed. I had long before begun to tune out all the mindless drivel about monogramming and everyday china when my awareness flashed into action as if on cue. I do not know what the question was, but Em's reply to J. 's younger daughter was "Because I addressed your father's Save the Date to him and his family."



So there it was. Em had read the bride's play book. She knew exactly what she was doing when she sent the Save the Date to me alone. It was intended for me alone, and intended to answer any question about whether or not my children were to be included. They were not. That was now clear.



Case closed.